It arrived just past Lauds. The sky was bruised with cold light, and the fire in your chamber had long since turned to ash. The day had begun thinly, with frost tracing the corners of the glass panes like lace worked by the hand of a ghost. Somewhere in the courtyard below, the stablehands were whistling, unconcerned. The dogs had not yet begun their restless barking. All was still. All was terribly, deceptively still.

You were combing your hair. Sitting at the narrow vanity, clad only in your shift and an old wool shawl that still smelled faintly of him—of leather, iron, rosemary. Your fingers had found a tangle behind your ear when a knock came at the door.

Not hurried. Not timid. Just… final.

It was Ana, red-faced and breathless, her apron dusted with flour. She held a letter in her hands like it was a dead bird. “Forgive me, my lady. It came with the messenger from the southern road. He wore the Prince’s colours, but…” She didn’t finish.

Your hands went cold. Not with panic—panic comes later. At first, there is only the strange, soundless pressure of something going wrong. You took the letter. The seal was broken.

Already, you knew. No words had been read yet. And still, some ancient part of you, the one that knew when your husband was near even before you saw him, knew.

The ink was smudged. Rain, perhaps. Or blood. Or careless fingers.

It said he was dead. Slain in ambush near the Danube. No survivors.

There was no signature. The words did not hit you all at once. They arrived like the stages of a storm: first the wind, then the silence, then the break.

You did not scream. You placed the letter on the table as gently as if it were glass. You pressed your hands flat against your thighs, trying to feel something—the grain of the wood, the texture of the linen under your palms, anything to remind you the world had not yet ended.

And then—nothing. No tears. No wail. Just a sudden, vast hollowness. The silence of it frightened you more than grief would have. You had imagined, in your darkest nights, what such a day might feel like. You’d imagined throwing yourself to the floor. Ripping your sleeves. Praying in Latin and blaspheming in your mother tongue. But this?

This was worse.

You stood. Slowly. Uncertainly. Your legs felt distant, like they belonged to someone else. You wandered the room without knowing why. You touched the edge of the bed where he last slept, the velvet still faintly creased. You opened the chest at the foot and ran your hands over the crimson cloak he wore the night before he left—the night he kissed your bare shoulder and said he’d return before the leaves turned.

The leaves had turned. And he wasn't here yet.

You went to the window. The fog was still clinging to the pines. Below, the courtyard bustled with early chores, oblivious. The sun was rising like it had no right to.

You gripped the sill. Hard. A thought came—not gently, but like a blade through cloth: You will grow old without him. You will grow old and fade and be buried under snow and stone, and he will never see it. He will never see you silver, or hollow, or broken. He will never touch your hands when they are thin and papery with time. He will never carry your bones.

A sound tore from your throat then—not quite a sob, not quite a word. A raw, wet thing. And you feel your cheeks get wet with thick tears. The pain of loss makes your heart ache.‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎